Amimon has been showing off its HDMI stick, which converts any HDMI source into a WHDI transmitter – and now has kit to connect to – but even that isn't generating much public interested in wireless video.
The stick will be demonstrated talking to an HD projector, sending uncompressed HD video up to 100m – 3D video is also a …

COMMENTS

Want.

Think it could be great. No matter how many connectors a tv has you're always one short so why not have wireless? Bung the tech into the tv and only have a power cable to worry about ruining a rooms aesthetics.

Some minor concerns

Uncompressed is lovely. However what about encryption? Is it secure? Does it even HAVE encryption? Not a concern if you're streaming TV around the house but a little more concerning when this is how you've got your PC hooked up.

USB *powered*, yes...

USB Power

Now to just get a powered USB hub soley to power the 3 or 4 HDMI devices off the back of the TV. Now the problem is, why don't they make a 90-degree version for those rear-facing HDMI ports (instead of some of the nicer downward- or sideways-facing ones)?

A nice option.

From their website "The 3.2x1.18x.61 inch (81.3x29.9x15.5 mm) transmitter plugs in directly to the HDMI port of the notebook and is powered by the USB port." So I guess an extension lead into the USB port, it just doesn't look hot to show it in the advertising blurb.

I already have wireless keyboard and mouse and getting one of these means I can park the desktop box anywhere I want, keeping my work area clearer. I'll have to give this some serious consideration!

Option?

Had the same reaction

With this I could build my HTPC into my coffee table with a cheapo touch screen (a la MS Surface) and use it remote control the tele as a second monitor. If this works I'm hoping I can finally keep the toddler's grubby mitts off the big screen :)

Granted, this would be cleaner with one of those touch-capable all-in-ones but I'm not sure those could push the second monitor properly.

point-to-point, or broadcast?

Does this just replace a single cable, or can one transmitting stick send to multiple receivers? If it is one-to-many then it could be useful when your video source doesn't have enough ports to feed multiple display devices., recorders, etc.

No compression

This thing must actually do some sort compression or image processing, as the article says it prioritises areas of the video stream, that sounds like compression to me. Maybe under ideal conditions at short range and low video entropy you will get bit perfect transmission?

Secondly I guess the transmission process is tranmsit and forget, the receiver won't have a chance to request lost data it'll have to fill in the blanks on the fly, if it even notices what data is lost, which leads to suggest the encryption/security process will be rudimentry at best.

Looks great if copper is really not convenient or not possible, otherwise if it is successful, I'm guessing it will soon be its own victim. Can't imagine how its going to work in an appartment block with dozens of devices all within radio earshot of each other.

Though looking forward to kids forcing pr0n broadcasts on the demo sets in your local branch of dsg.comet.dixons.pcworld.currys.digital

Why so down?

On what appears to be a great product, streaming HD video from my SKY HD box to other rooms with a simple dongle seems to good to be true?? In theory means you could play a PS3 in another room as well assuming the controller can still communicate.

"while the competition has more generic applications".

What competition exactly? What other product will let me do those things?

Good device

DO WANT

Would be nice to play all those control pad friendly games (all none FPS obviously) installed on my gaming pc in my office from the comfort of the sofa with the epic audio I have in the living room. I was going to buy a second rig for doing this in the living room but this device will save me hundreds of pounds if it works well!

Why not just ATSC/DVBT?

...although it occurs to me that all of this seems a bit overdone.

A more robust and more standard way of going about this would seem to be going the old "ipod radio transmitter" route and just broadcasting your video on a normal TV channel. Regardless of what approach you take, you still have to manage the problem of multiple devices and the house next store.

A Little about the Specs

According to the specification overview on the WHDI™ website, it has got the following specifications (with my comments):

* Video rates <= 3 Gbps

* Uncompressed transmission

* Range > 100 feet (or 30 metres for the few of us that prefer metric ;-) through walls (!!!)

* Latency < 1 ms (should be good enough for gaming and probably implies no encryption as that would impact latency and since they do not mention encryption either)

* Element prioritisation

As they do not compress the signal and since they utilise the bandwidth extremely well, they did a tradeoff in the error detection/correction department instead by giving video elements of high visibility more error detection/correction bits and elements with less visibility fewer (or maybe even none). This means that any transmission problems would primarily manifest themselves in the less discernible elements of the picture, whereas trasnmission problems in the more discernible elements would be error corrected. (If I understand it correctly, they are in fact protecting the most significant bits of the signal better than the least significant bits.)

Thus no compression, but a similar effect (i.e. missing parts of the picture/artifacts) if you are in an environment with much noise or using it over relatively long distances. The 100 feet claim does not say if that is with a perfect transmission.

HDCP

The crux of this device will be in HDCP support I suspect. That and if it supports HDMI Audio as well.

The native DRM implementation over HDMI may not react well to these links, meaning no or severely degraded video depending on the source. Running a power point from your laptop wouldn't be an issue, but streaming content or Bluray playback might not work at all if something throws a tilt bit.

HDCP does encrypt the link though, and that is handled on the source and destination devices so it should effect the load much.

I hope they make one for standard VGA + Audio with the same radio tech.

As to the market case, I'd buy a crate full of these to get video from a teacher/presenters laptop up on the LCD projectors in our classrooms.

Consumer demand, yes there is.

Just look at the mostly positive response to the article. The lack of any perceived consumer demand may simply be due to the general unavailability of such devices. Yes, there are some available, but they are bulky and expensive. It needs to be small, affordable and Plug and Play like these units. And they need to be marketed in press like T3 and Stuff magazine.